The Will To Kill (Don Ward)

Nationwide murder numbers are down. They're still shocking.

SO MANY AMERICANS ARE WILLING TO END ANOTHER LIFE

In Colorado Springs we had several homicides last week. We're at 23 for the year, there were 17 at this time last year.

It got me thinking.

If someone is in your home, threatening your safety...you might be mentally prepared to try to kill them. If someone is about to hurt your child, or maybe anyone's child, maybe you could pull the trigger. In situations like those it makes some sense to be capable of ending another human life. Add in war and certain law enforcement situations to the equation as a given.

In 2009 there were 15,100 murders in the U.S...most of them were not any of the above scenarios, or they wouldn't be classified as murders.

The national numbers in 2009 were actually down from the year before, down by 5.5%. Our murder rate as a nation was five per every 100,000 people. According to a summary in a publication called "The Week" it's the highest of all of the affluent democracies. The peak by the way was in 1991, when it was 9.8 per 100,000. So it's good that it's way down, but it's still alarming that it's as high as it is.

This is not a piece for or against gun control. There are strong arguments on both sides of that issue. What's disturbing here is that so many are so willing to take another life. Most of us are not.

There's something in the human psyche or in the human soul that simply won't allow us to do it..unless we find ourselves in a life-or-death situation.

What's scary is that about 15,000 people in this country are willing, in a given year, to kill another human being. They are apparently missing that inherent something that says , "No, I won't do that, I can't do that." It doesn't have to come from a book or a building, although it certainly can, in most of us it just ....is.

Nearly all of the 310 million or so in our nation have enough respect for human lives that they wouldn't try to end one. What happend to those other 15,000?

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Don Ward anchors KKTV 11 News at 4:30, 5:30, 6:30 and 10:00 with Dianne Derby. His broadcasting career, which began in 1988, includes earning numerous professional honors and maintaining strong ties to Colorado.